D'Alessandro, Westhill girls advance in Class LL

Ryan Lacey

Updated 10:49 pm, Tuesday, February 26, 2013

STAMFORD--After bitter losses to city-rivals Trinity Catholic and Stamford to close the regular season and conference playoffs respectively, the Class LL tournament is the last opportunity for the Westhill girls basketball team to put a positive stamp on what has been an outstanding season so far.

The No. 8 Vikings avoided the first hurdle in their quest for a state crown, as Meg D'Alessandro scored 23 points in a 58-40 win over East Catholic on Tuesday evening. The Vikings will meet E.O. Smith in the second round at home on Friday.

"For the last week our morale has been down a little bit, we weren't as upbeat as we were before on our winning streak," D'Alessandro said. "We are definitely happy that we got the win, but we are not satisfied with winning one game in states. We want to keep going."

Westhill (18-3) jumped on the visitors quickly and never looked back. D'Alessandro had 10 points in the first quarter as the Vikings built an 18-6 lead early in the second and never led by less than double-digits the rest of the way.

"We didn't necessarily expect (the quick start), but one of our goals was to come out fast," D'Alessandro said. "We knew (East Catholic) had a long ride and that's never fun. We just wanted to get out to a nice lead and keep working at it."

The bus ride back to Manchester will feel far longer for the Eagles (9-12) after their season came to a close with the loss. East Catholic was relentlessly attacked by the full-court pressure provided by Westhill, and the pace of the game increased as a result.

"I think we pressured (East Catholic) well," Vikings coach Mike King said. "We did a good job of making them run up and down the court with us. I thought that was going to be our strength. We gave them three or four different pressures and gave them different looks to confuse them and take away different things each time.

The pressure led to plenty of lay-up opportunities for Westhill, which converted most of them. That, combined with the outside shooting of D'Alessandro, was far too much for the visitors to handle.

"We were definitely ready to play tonight," King said. "I liked the fact that we got a lot of easy shots; I thought we missed some bunnies in the first half, but I was happy we got them."

D'Alessandro's teammates got more involved as the game wore on, largely thanks to the playmaking ability of point guard Steph Roones. The junior scored five points and dished out seven assists, breaking down the defense and often finding open Vikings under the hoop.

"I thought (Roones) did a really nice job of distributing the ball and running the show," King said. "She did a good job defensively as well; her length gave (East Catholic's) guards problems."

Westhill is among six FCIAC schools to reach the round of 16, and all are trying to break a lengthy drought for the conference when it comes to raising the class LL trophy. Norwalk was the last to accomplish the feat in 2000.

"It's going to be tough but you can't count us out," D'Alessandro said. "We are going to keep working hard and keep taking one game at a time."